Darwin-L Message Log 7:83 (March 1994)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<7:83>From dasher@netcom.com  Tue Mar 22 02:41:14 1994

Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 00:42:11 -0800
From: dasher@netcom.com (Anton Sherwood)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: dialect continua

Tom Cravens writes:
> . . .  We can certainly see that Catalan and Venetian are
> quite different, but if we hike from Barcelona to Venice,
> we can find no point at which the village-to-village chain
> of mutual comprehensibility breaks down.  . . .

I wish I could have a Romance (or German) grammar-book which,
besides the usual dimensions of person-number-tense-mood or
number-gender-case, could show the two geographic dimensions
of the dialect continuum.  Maybe hypertext will soon make
such a book feasible.

Such a book might require a new diaphonic notation, with a
single sign for French /y/ and corresponding Spanish /u/...

Anton Sherwood   *\\*   +1 415 267 0685   *\\*   DASher@netcom.com

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